The McGill University Health Centre is an essential part, a Montreal institution. The MUHC’s health services and medical quality cannot be allowed to degenerate . This is one medical institution that has to be watched and further supervised at every opportunity. Our lives may depend on it. I myself had reported even in writing to the news media, governments, as I had many times witnessed, that when a person had called at a clinic for an appointment at one of the MUHC hospitals, the secretaries there would inform them of 6 months delay but they would also tell the same patient that they could get a quicker response with the same doctors at their private clinics.. and this really is not free medicare but an unacceptable abuse of Medicare by money hungry greedy professionals

MONTREAL — The McGill University Health Centre and some of its physicians are profiting from their involvement in a private Montreal-based company that sells “quick” access to second medical opinions and therapeutic advice to patients in Quebec and across Canada who have private insurance, The Gazette has learned. “Our fast, efficient process helps cut the response time to a minimum,” advertises the company, Medical Second Opinion, which runs a discrete operation. “The shorter the wait, the lower your stress level.” The MUHC is paid royalties to allow its name to be used, and its physicians are paid for providing written second opinions within as little as seven days in a public health-care system where year-long waits for a first medical opinion are not uncommon, and where second opinions are often harder to come by. The MUHC specialists do not examine the patients in person, but they do review their medical files and provide a second opinion that can concur or disagree with an original diagnosis. In 10 per cent of cases, the MUHC physicians have offered a differing opinion and in 25 per cent of cases, they recommend additional potentially life-saving therapeutic options that were not available with the original diagnosis. Michael Churchill-Smith, the medical director of Medical Second Opinion, said the MUHC physicians do most of this work on their own time in the evenings and on weekends, but he acknowledged that they might in rare instances do the evaluations while working at the MUHC. Informed of The Gazette’s findings on Thursday, the province’s medicare board announced Friday that it will investigate Medical Second Opinion and its ties to the MUHC. “The business model of Medical Second Opinion … has raised questions and is of concern to the Régie de l’assurance-maladie du Québec,” Marc Lortie, a spokesman for RAMQ, wrote in an email to The Gazette after viewing the company’s website. “We will carry out the necessary verifications to determine what this (business model) is exactly and whether it respects the (Quebec) Health Insurance Act.” That the MUHC, a public network of six hospitals, is promoting “fast” access to the medical expertise of a private company is being denounced as a form of queue-jumping and two-tier medicine by the Canadian Health Coalition, a group that supports universal medicare. This is surreptitious two-tier health care to expedite access for people with extra insurance,” said Michael McBane, national co-ordinator of the coalition. “They think that the elites should have elite health care. It’s a fundamental violation of the very core of the Canada Health Act.” MUHC officials insist that Medical Second Opinion is a private company that is completely separate from the hospital network. However, The Gazette has uncovered extensive links between the company and the MUHC.

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Queue-jumping in the health system has gained national attention this month after the Alberta government launched a public inquiry into allegations that the province’s politicians and the well-connected were granted fast-track access to care based on status rather than medical necessity. For McBane, of the Canadian Health Coalition, the MUHC partnership with Medical Second Opinion suggests that the hospital network has lost its way. “There’s some kind of a corporate virus that has infected that renowned medical institution and that needs to get cleaned out of there,” he said. “This is a mentality that sees health care as an investment opportunity.” http://www.montrealgazette.com/business/MUHC+ties+advice+firm+investigated/7737265/story.html

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Major Professional Corruption, stealing, tax evasions, and false denials have been going on everywhere In Quebec the last 50 years and you did not have to be a mayor to know that Montreal city hall and even the Universities, Hospitals, police, News media, politicians too have been now corrupted for decades too. No such thing even here as a little bit pregnant. Sadly a lot of this corruptions now involves professionals who respond falsely even with arrogance and false denials when confronted rightfully with their wrong doings.. This Gravy train cannot go on and on.. https://thenonconformer.wordpress.com/2012/12/20/doctors-nurses-hospitals-triages-in-montreal-quebec/